Theodore Ward is a man of deep passions and strong principles—none of which he acts on—and thus Margaret Hampton ends their engagement. But when Theo strives to win her back, they’re caught in the bloodiest conflict in American history.
Better, no? It’s going into the query stage.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I don’t really like Valentine’s Day. Yes, I know, I read and write romance novels. Isn’t it required to like Valentine’s? Flowers and hearts and candy and poetical language and jewelry and love? What’s not to like?
The commercialism, I guess. The sense that it’s required, that it’s some sort of test for lovers to see if they get a good enough gift or a meaningful enough gift. Real romance is so much more quotidian and transformational than that.
But that’s not to say that I don’t like love songs and poems. So for Valentine’s, here are a few of my favorites.
I’m still writing, I swear. Slowly. One inch at a time. I have a plan for Matilda and August’s novel (Dauntless Love #2), including a solid first chapter. And I’m revising Brave at Heart and at some point, I’m going to take a swing at finishing The Easy Part.
But for whatever reason, writing’s gotten hard. I know that I need to get the momentum back and that once I’m going, the process will carry me. The damn ball won’t budge though. As Dr. Seuss tells us, “unslumping yourself is not easily done.” No kidding.
So I’m reading and I’m whining and I’m stalling and I’m waiting for the muse to come around again.
How do you get back in the rhythm of writing every day when you’ve fallen out of step?
The other day, I had a conversation with a potential critique partner. She asked, “What kind of books do you want to write?”
I’m embarrassed to admit, I was a little stumped. What I eventually said is that I want to write historical romances that show as much interest and enthusiasm in American history as the best European (read: British) historicals do and that I want to write sexy, youthful contemporaries that capture what I feel like is missing in the market today (e.g., romance between smart, ambitious professionals, etc.). The manuscripts I’ve completed so far are all pretty serious. I’d also like to lighten things up a bit and have a little more fun, while remaining true to myself and my voice.
In the next year, I’d like to finish The Easy Part and revise it. I want to finish the revisions of Brave in Heart and Together is Enough. I want to write a full-length book for the Dauntless Love series plus one other manuscript (either the next book in that series or a sequel to The Easy Part). I want to win NaNoWriMo, either with one of those manuscripts or maybe with a third project. I want to send out query letters for Brave in Heart and The Easy Part. I want to get ready to enter a manuscript in the 2014 Golden Heart. If I haven’t been able to find an agent or a publisher or to final in Golden Heart, I want to prepare to self-publish in mid to late 2014.
Most of all, I want to improve my craft. I’m a better writer now than I was 12 months ago. I want to be a better writer still 12 months from now. This means writing every day, focusing on showing versus telling, keeping my dialogue realistic and light, and becoming a better planner.
What are your 2013 writing goals?
Dispatches from revising: why is it that “throw out your first chapter and weave the relevant information in elsewhere” is almost always good advice? Why are first drafts of first chapters fatally flawed nearly all the time?
So I ended NaNoWriMo with 34,685 words. While I didn’t win, I did do better than last year. And I know that’s a lot more words than I would have written on my own without the NaNoWriMo gimmick. Yes, I wanted to have my manuscript finished and it’s not, but I made significant progress and had a lot of fun.
Here’s what I’ve learned from two attempts at NaNoWriMo:
Now here’s to hoping I can finish The Easy Part before the end of the year.
I’m at that point in The Easy Part when I have to break the central couple up and seriously, I hate doing this. Someday I’m going to write a book where the central couple don’t get together until the very end just so that I can avoid writing painful scenes like the one I’m about to attempt.
For NaNoWriMo, I’m at 33,554 words, with 56,906 total in the manuscript. Let the bridge burning begin!
(Also, it isn’t on their blog but I think I can write about it: Brave in Heart finaled in the 2012 Novellas Need Love Too contest, sponsored by the Celtic Hearts Romance Writers. Yay!)
To follow up on my previous post, anyone who has ever written fiction can agree that naming characters so that the results are believable and convey everything you want a name to convey is…hard. It’s like naming your children, if you somehow already knew everything about them and were trying to come up with the perfect label for all that awesome. Also, if you weren’t hemmed in by your partner’s preference, family requirements, and social convention. But I digress.
One of my favorite resources is Baby Center, which has a tool to display other “similar” names. This is great if you’re like me and the process of naming characters goes something like this.
“What would a WASP name her son? You know, something like Bradley but not?”
Which is how I ended up naming the hero in the manuscript I’m finishing now Parker.
The Social Security Administration database is good too, particularly if you want to find the top names from a specific decade. Before 1900, I also like this site, which uses data that SSA doesn’t have online.
And we’re halfway through NaNoWriMo and I’m at 21,889 words. Still just a bit behind but I’ve made up some of the ground I lost when I had serious election fever. Bad planning on someone’s part, that was. John Adams, I’m looking at you.
I’m at 16,689 words for NaNoWriMo. I’m about 5,000 words behind, though I haven’t done any writing today. With some consistency and luck, I might be able to win. At the very least, I’m making good progress on The Easy Part, which now has 40,035 words and should be done by the end of the year.
Really, though, this post mostly serves as a reminder to check your characters’ names against those not just of the other characters in the book you’re writing but those in your other WIPs. The heroine in the recently finished Brave in Heart? Margaret. The heroine in The Easy Part? Millie (short for Amelia). The heroine in Brave in Heart’s sequel, which I’m plotting in my head? Matilda.
Why am I so fixated on the letter M?
I can’t change any of these names. I’m far enough along in the characterization that it would be weird. Margaret is Margaret. Millie is Millie. Matilda is Matilda. But I think it’s safe to say that I’m done with M-named heroines for a while.
Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? I am!
I’m bending the rules a bit, trying to write the last 50,000 words to finish a manuscript that is already begun — The Easy Part, a contemporary single title romance set between political operatives in Washington, DC. Here’s to hoping I can “win” this year!
Emma Barry 